Veterans summit calls for action, collaboration

Brittany Patterson / Kitsap Sun
To round out three days of planning and collaboration, on Friday attendees of the first Military Families and Veterans Action Summit sprinkle soil into the pot of a tree that will be planted at the IslandWood education center in a show of commitment toward improving the lives of Washington’s veterans and military families.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND - Although the Military Families and Veterans Action Summit is over, the work is just beginning.

About 80 people from around the county gathered at the IslandWood outdoor education campus on Bainbridge Island to pool resources and develop plans to better serve Washington’s veterans and their families.

“This was not a normal conference,” said Martin LeBlanc, senior vice president of IslandWood’s external affairs.

The idea was not to just talk about issues affecting military families and veterans — such as health care, employment, education, housing, transitioning back to civilian life and more — but to make plans that will bring about measurable change.

Within the next four days very specific 30-, 60-, 90- and 120-day plans will be drawn up based on the discussions held during the summit, he said.

A year from now, IslandWood will host another event and the first order of business will be to share results.

The gathering, which was held July 24-26, brought both local and national leaders from government, nonprofits and business together. It included representatives from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House Joining Forces Initiative, an effort to serve military families led by first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“There are so many good, passionate people within the space of military families and veterans, but they’re not necessarily collaborating their efforts to have that collective impact,” LeBlanc said.

Breaking down silos is especially important now as war in Afghanistan winds down and the armed forces begin to downsize.

“Servicemen and women and their families don’t come home to government, they don’t come home to DOD, they don’t come home to the VA, they come home to their communities,” said Anne Sprute, founder and CEO of RallyPoint/6, a nonprofit that helps veterans transition to civilian life.

When Sprute left the Army after 24 years, she said it was a challenge to fit back into civilian life. She had trouble identifying her strengths and marketing them to potential employers. A group of fellow veterans helped her and she landed a job at Microsoft.

Since then, she has worked with numerous organizations and individuals to develop a model currently being used in Pierce County. That model lays out what communities can do to connect what she calls “the sea of goodwill” — the sometimes overwhelming wealth of services that are out there — to veterans and families who need them.

The summit falls in line with IslandWood’s newest initiative to partner with organizations that support military families.

Recently the center began hosting retreats for wounded veterans and their families through the National Military Family Association. A third is scheduled for October.

“IslandWood wasn’t chosen for this, IslandWood did this,” said Stacy Bare, director of the Sierra Club’s outdoor programing and army veteran. “They began this dialogue.”

Participants had the opportunity to enjoy some of the trails at the 255-acre facility, swap stories around a campfire and enjoy family-style meals with one another. LeBlanc said IslandWood also brought in a facilitator who used graphics so that attendees could visualize from the beginning to the end how they could collaborate. By Friday. the main hall’s wood-paneled walls were covered in butcher paper filled with ideas inked in magic marker.

Sprute said this summit was exactly what the groups who serve veterans and military families needed.

“We all have resources that are stretched to the max,” she said. “This summit helped people dig down deep and do a gut check and say if I work with the guy or gal sitting next to me that I just met, then I can provide a better outcome to my clients who are servicemen or women and their families.”